Both CTA and Metra Electric are physically connected to the rest of the american rail network. CTA used to have several connections - the only remaining one is at the 63rd St yard. with NS for material delivery. Metra Electric's connection allows NICTD to use Metra to Randolph St. "Millenium Station". CTA's 600 volt third rail is obviously not directly compatible with Metra's 1500 vdc overhead, though in the long-forgotten past the South Shore had a couple of freight motors that could be set up to run on 600 volts.
Both Metra and CTA have clearance diagrams slightly smaller than standard, which require the use of gauntlets for freight equipment to clear high platforms.
If Cleveland (missing from both lists) were categorized it would be easier to figure out the boundaries.
It's amazing to look at how many cities have added both light and heavy rail systems in the last 50 years. Quite a few cities have added both.
Has Rc given it a try?
daveklepperYou are telling me that it is not worth your bother to look at the other systems listed and put what you find to work to answer the question?
You are telling me that it is not worth your bother to look at the other systems listed and put what you find to work to answer the question?
Bumping this.
The electrical characteristics of the MARTA systems may share a common voltage, but the pickup systems and the loading height are both, to my knowledge, radically different. That leaves me out of the water before asking whether only CTA and METRA 'Electric' are the things being compared in Chicago. Someone else will have to winkle out the 'key' details here.
Atlanra's MARTA Sp?) rapid transit and its streetcar are the same gauge and share another imortant technical characteristic.
Chicago's CTA and its METRA also share the same gauge but differ in this other characteristic (enough) to put Chicago's public transit in a different ctagorythan Atlanta.
You will enjoy my lstest LVT posting (give it some timje). Thanks for your confirmation, and you should be ablr to answer the latest question easily.
The Mon and Duquesne inclines have a track gauge of 5 ft.
All of the interurbans that connected with Pittburgh's streetcar system were also Penn Gauge, so end-to-end connections were not a problem.
69th street in Philadelphia has incompatible Penn gauge systems, and gauge-incompatible third rail systems all sharing a station.
OK. Don't out-think youself. Grab the obvious on this one:
All the cities below have electroc rail-public-transit, but can be divided into two catagoies, excluding any airport people-movers, funiculars, and cable-cars:
Catagoy One:
New York City, Hoboken, Newark. Trenton, Phhildadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Chicago, Denver
Catagoy Two:
New Orelans, Atlanta, Kenosha, Little Rock, Miami, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Detroit, San Diego, Portland, Seattle. Sacramento, St. Llouis, Dallas, Houston, Salt Lake City.
Boston is a matter of interpretation, but sometime in the future will almost certainly be in the first catagory.
San Francisco and San Jose may be currently in the second catagory but will (hopefully) shortly be in the first catagory without question.
Difference between the two catagories?
That was a bit too obvious. I was looking for something esoteric... outthunk myself.
Ask another one.
That was a bit too obvious. I was looking for something esoteric...
OK, if it is truly not obvious, with all the hints, herewith all the answers.:
A hint was that only one Class I Railroad had this characyrtistic after WWII, that it was the last in the USA to use steam , and steam was used to haul passengers isolated from the rest of ots system, The D&RGW used steam on the isolated Durango - Silverton operation until that line was sold to Bradshaw, and only then did D&RGW become all-diesel. And it was the only Class I to have more than one gauge after WWII.
San Fransisco handles commuters with diesel buses, trolley-buses, streetcars, light-rail, heavy rapid=transit, commuter trains, cable-cars, and ferry boats. That's more types of public transit than any other city. It also has more than one track gauge, with cable-cars narriower, and BART wider.
Pittsburgh and Philadelpia are both in Pennsylvania. The gauge of Pittsburgh's inclined railways, funiculars, is different from the light rail system.
Philadelphia has standard gauge for commuter rail, the Norristown line, the Broad Street Subway, and PATCo. Wide gauge for Market Street rapid-trasnsit, streetcars using the center-city subway, and the two remaining Red Arrow lines, Media and Sharon Hill.
No othe USA City has currently more than one track gauge.
Comments?
It is, regrettably, not obvious to me. And that's including the hint about all the different kinds of transportation.
Do RC or Overmod bother to read this? The answers should be obvious by now.
Two metfropolitan areas with transir systems having this characteristic are in the same USa eState. The third is far away and has more forms of public transportation than any other USA or North American city, probably more than any in the World. And it will always have this characteristic. A fourth city, not terribly far from one of the two in the same state, could be said to have this characteristic, but only if you include a museum operation.
And one Canadian city has this characteristic.
The passenger service that was hauled by steam was (and is) isolated.
I thpught the hint of only one Class I with this characteristic through WWII and after, and that the characteristic prevents thru service, would at least give away the characteristic.
So, another hint. The Class I wast the last USA Class I to use steam regularly; they certainly used lots of diesels, the steam hauled passengers, and the Class I never replaced them.
If you know two-out-of-the-three USA transit systems that have this charecteristic, I'll accept you as the winner.
Giveawy hint:
A characteristic not limited to transit systems. There were a number of USA Class-1s with this characterisitic, with one lasting through WWII and beyond. As far as I know, none now.
One interurban line had this characterisric, even conecring its own lines aside from the need to use other companies facilities for city access.
Three large USA transit systems, both operating buses, as well as electric rail vehicles, have a feature regarding their rail systems that is common to these three, that the other transit systems definitely do not have. It is not a positive feature fr any rail operation, electric, steam, diesel, or whatever, and in one of the systems can be considerred an impedement to improved service.
Outside the USA, there are many systems with this characteristic, possibly between 50 and 100. And there were many more in the USA at one time.
1953 was probably the first time that CA&E actually had a surplus of equipment.
Correct. CA&E leased the "North Shore woods" during WWII. Though similar to CA&E's wood cars, they didn't run well in trains with them, so they were kept together, usually in local or shuttle service. In 1946, CA&E returned the cars to the North Shore, and then bought them at a near-scrap price. Most if not all of them were taken out of service after September 1953 when direct service to the Loop ended.
Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee and Chicago Aurora and Elgine.
Not sure, can look it up Sunday evening, but not until then.
I think CA&E was the buyer, and CNS&M the seller, but uncertain.
In the same postwar era, one interurban sold several wooden cars to another, making these the last wooden interurbans sold for continued service. Name both railroads.
100 percent. But I don't consider either the Red Arrow or the IT cars as interurban cars, because both were built for suburban service. This is a matter of opinion, not fact.
But you did mention the CA&E cars, which were the ones I indeed had in mind. Look forward to your question.
All of the interurban streamliners (CNS&M, IT, and PSTCo) were built by St. Louis Car. The last "interurban" cars were the the 14 built in 1949 for Philadelphia Suburban Transportation (Red Arrow Lines) with double-ended PCC bodies, but non-PCC trucks and motors. IT's PCCs for Granite City service were delivered in 1947 and 1948. Not streamlined but very modern were CA&E's 1945 451-460 series.
IT and StLCC did not take into account that IT still had some very sharp curves, both vertical and horizontal, on its lines. The streamlined trains had to be separated into single cars to loop in St. Louis. Only one trip was made into Peoria over the street trackage, where both grade change and curve issues were found. All revenue trips ended in East Peoria with a shuttle car handling the trip to IT's downtown station. IT soon pulled out of Peoria altogether, using the East Peoria station until the end of IT passenger service.
1. The post-WWII streamliners that St. Louis Car Company built for the Illinoois Terninbal Railroaf were not as suvvessful as the pre-WWII Electroliners (one at Illinis Eailroad Museum in Union, Illinois, I believe operational and restored as a Morth Shore Elecroliner, and one at a Pennsylvania musuem and still a Philadelphia and Western/Red Arrow Libertyliner). What was the major defect?
2. These were not the very USA interuban cars built. What were?
Please do the extra, and give as much information and history as you can. Thanks.
Yes you do.
Don Ib get to ask the next question?
Except for the Worcester Main Line (key to the proposed CSX acquisition of Pan Am) very little of the WN&P survives. The bulk of its route in New Hampshire is now state route 125. There were some short branches in service until the 1990s. There are some local pronunciations of Worcester (Wurster, Woostah) as well as the more common Wooster. The WooSox are the local Red Sox affiliate, formerly in Pawtucket RI as the PawSox. The WN&P's status as the Ghost Division was an early admission from the railroad unions that mergers, acquisitions and abandonments have to be handled realistically.
daveklepperI think the name has always been pronounced "Wooster."
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oJdN7pLBrio
0:40
(I was going to type it but... I didn't renember it in its full splendor.)
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